


The Girl Who Went to the End of the World Without Shoes: A Gerda Character Study

by Sparkle 94 (acpendra)



Category: Sneedronningen | The Snow Queen - Hans Christian Andersen
Genre: Gen, attempted canibalism, general fairy tale weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22268833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acpendra/pseuds/Sparkle%2094
Summary: Just an brief character study of Gerda from the Snow Queen.
Relationships: Finnekonen | The Finn Woman & Gerda (Sneedronningen), Gerda/Kai (Sneedronningen | Snow Queen), Gerda/Røverpige | Robber Girl
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	The Girl Who Went to the End of the World Without Shoes: A Gerda Character Study

This is dedicated to niuu who was the only one who voted and requested i do Gerda. Sorry its late and way past Christmas but here you go. 

Hans Christen Anderson’s the Snow Queen was published in 1845. Its originally seven short stories strung together and it’s one of the handfuls of Anderson’s fairy tales to remain popular in the public eye. This story had been adapted time and time again for both the pleasure of the reader and casual movie goer. The basic premise of the story is a girl named Gerda goes to rescues her childhood playmate a little boy named Kay who has been taken away by the Snow Queen. This is the character, I want to examine today since this is my late Christmas character study. Yeah it’s been a busy couple of weeks. So without further ado let’s take a look at our leading lady. 

Gerda is introduced with her grandmother and her childhood friend Kay with the old women giving exposition by telling them about the Snow Queen. Later Kay and Gerda are outside during the summer kissing and singing to the roses; yeah I’m not making this up that’s what it says. Anyway “The little girl had learnt a hymn in which roses were spoken of, and then she thought of their own roses, and she sang the hymn to the little boy, and he sang too:—“ This line suggests that Gerda is often the one who takes the lead between the two of them.

The next day where their looking at some animal and bird picture book, while still managing to give off enough saccharine sweetness to give half their readership cavities. Kay suddenly yells about something in his eye that struck his heart and we get this response from Gerda “ The little girl put her arm around his neck, and looked into his eye, but she could see nothing” This seems to imply Gerda is the one who usually takes care of Kay since she jumps into check on Kay mode.  
The next couple of days don’t mention Gerda but Kay acting like a typical little boy. Just kidding he’s just got a piece of glass in his eye, that makes everything great and good seem ugly and small and everything bad more visibly flawed. He makes fun of people, he now hates flowers, and he calls their picture books babyish because he now sees only the bad in everything. Then he goes out sledding and gets picked up by the Snow queen who makes him forget everyone and carries him off.  
Now let’s get back to Gerda at first she thinks Kay is dead but after talking to the sunshine and sparrows because we’re going by Disney logic here who says no the kid is not dead. 

Gerda realizes that Kay may not be dead and puts on a pair of red shoes goes down to the river and says “Is it true you have taken my little playmate away from me? I will give you my red shoes if you will give him back to me” As we’re shown earlier Gerda takes the lead and is often the one to care for Kay. So it makes absolute sense she would go after him. Her love and connection to nature is also conveyed in many previous scenes hence her relationship with the river. Her sacrifice of shoes could be a nod to Pagan practice of direct sacrifices to water Gods or it could be pure coincidence since Anderson often has his female heroes give up something in pursuit of their goals. Which is more likely because story is about as subtle as the Road Runner dropping an anvil on Wide E Coyote when it comes to its pro Christian stance. 

Gerda floats for a while and comes across a cottage with an old woman who takes her out of the boat. Shows her the gardens combs out her hair and spells her into forgetting about her quest. Now note how this is pretty typical for a hero story, for the hero to be ensnared by some magical being usually beautiful women who want to keep them. Think Lancelot and Morgana le fey or Odysseus and the nymph .Gerda’s value is not sexual to the women but the element of forced companionship is still there. The witch gets rid of all the roses but forgets about the one in her hat. So Gerda just ends up unsettled by the fact there should be roses but there aren’t, to the point where she goes into hysterics over lack of roses and her tears brings the roses up from the ground. 

This shows that Gerda isn’t stupid she knows somethings up and also that Gerda is a very sensitive soul who becomes easily upset in bad situations. So Gerda asks the roses if Kay is dead and they tell her they didn’t see him under the dirt. So she starts asking the other flowers who start blabbering on about their own stories and dreams and being completely useless. So we can add patience to the list of Gerda traits because her only response is to keep asking about Kay until finally she gets fed up and tells the narcissus “Why do I care for all that? You need not tell me such stuff” then basically hightails it out of the magic garden. 

Sometime Gerda meets a crow who hearing about Kay tells her he’s marrying the princess, who wanted to marry a guy who she can hold a conversation with . At this point Gerda tries to be nice but is a bit impatient yelling “But Kay! Tell me about little Kay was he amongst the crowd?” but then politely puts up with his yapping for five extra minutes, I repeat the patience of a saint. 

This turns out to be a false report luckily the prince and princess are really, really nice considering Gerda snuck into their bedroom in the middle of the night, seriously those guards should be fired. If a little girl and two crows can get into your head of states bedroom your security sucks! Anyway this shows that Gerda is plucky she snuck into the castle on the off chance she could see Kay. She is also referenced folding her hands which suggests Gerda is most likely a good christen girl “ How good everyone is to me men and animals too” this conveys that Gerda has a graciousness character she’s thankful for everyone’s help.

So Gerda gets given shoes and nice clothes and put into a carriage and sent on her way before she’s set upon by robbers who appear to have cannibalistic tendencies. Yeah Gerda is very nearly stewed by the robber lady who disturbingly associating her being tasty with Gerda being pretty. Which once again why is associating physical attractiveness with being a gourmand option a thing in fairy tales? 

Gerda gets saved because the Queen of the robber’s daughter physically attacks her. Who is honestly a character I could go on and on about but this is about Gerda. So I’ll keep my focus on her. Anyway, the Little Robber girl basically decides she wants to keep Gerda to herself. Robber girl is kind of unstable and has no sense of personal boundaries’. So Gerda has to share a bed with a knife wielding nutcase who’s clearly the product of an abusive childhood while hearing a bunch of drunken robbers’ party outside. I think its worth noting Gerda does not cry which implies pure terror rather than just stress. Luckily for her the Robber girls has an animal collection and her pigeons tell Gerda they’ve seen Kay and Bay the captive reindeer knows how to find the Snow Queen. The robber girl reveals she does have a heart and frees Gerda and Bay so he can take Gerda to go rescue Kay. 

They go to this lady called the Lap women who sends them to her friend the Finn women and not much from Gerda but we do get this from about Gerda from the Finn women “I can give her no greater then she has already” said the women “Don’t you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obligated to serve her and how well she has got through the world barefooted as she is?” Though the quote goes on to state this power is Gerda’s innocence and purity of heart which we’ll come back to later.

So anyway Gerda gets packed up again bids Bay goodbye and finally arrives at her destination. She finds Kay half frozen and cries on him melting the ice in his heart and singing to him the song of their childhood, which breaks the spell on him. “ Roses bloom and cease to be, but we shall the Christ child see” So then we get a brief explanation of their journey back which involves kissing a reindeer on the mouth after drinking its milk for some reason? Maybe it’s a metaphor and there are mentions of what happened to Gerda’s helpers. So they go home see their grandmother who doesn’t seem disturbed or to even notice the fact either of them ever left or notice their now physically full adults and go sit in the garden in the sun while the their grandmother reads from the bible.

So Anderson wants us to take away from this is that Gerda is helped and everything ends up well because she’s innocent and pure of heart and blessed by heaven. I’m going to call Death of the author on this one. Is Gerda kind yes, is she driven by love and self-sacrifice certainly. She also has a strong sense of faith, but what we see in this story isn’t just some loving innocent who gets magical help because she wept on a spinning wheel, no offense to the millers daughter.  
We see a girl who wanted to find her playmate and went and looked for him. Everyone who helped Gerda would have never done so if she hadn’t gone up and asked them if they saw Kay. Also all the people she asked required Gerda to do actual thinking. Gerda never quit even when she had to sneak into a palace or got captured by robbers she kept on going. She mostly keeps her patience even when the beings she’s interrogating are being deeply self-centered like the flowers. It’s not innocence or purity that allows her to walk to the end of with world in her bare feet. Its self-determination a strong iron belief that Gerda is going to find Kay and bring him home no matter what. That allows her to deal with every trial and tribulation the end of the world throws at her. Yes Gerda gets a lot of help because almost everyone she meets is inspired by her. That is Gerda’s power and I’d argue the core of her character.

**Author's Note:**

> i really like the Snow Queen fairy tale its weird and overly sappy at times but it has a kind of charm to it, i feel like most adaptations just cannot capture. Also for a fairy tale there's a surpriseing amount of moral greyness sure Gerda is typical fairy tale sugar and spice but even with the glass in his eye Kay can look at the Snow Queen without her being distorted this hints the Snow Queen is neither good nor evil she just is. The witch who tries to keep Gerda is selfish but sympathdic because she's lonely. The robber girl is an amoral bandit who simply develops a soft spot for Gerda but is still very much not a good person. 
> 
> if you like what your reading, i'd invite you to check out any of the sites that are listed under my profile. I honestly love shareing thoughts on fictional characters and the worlds they inhabit. And i'd also love to hear your thoughts as well.   
> Finally i would like to thank all of my readers, especially those leaving me lovely kudos and comments. You guys keep me updateing and posting, so thank you for the encouragement.


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